A Broken Man in Flower
Bloodaxe Books Ltd (Verlag)
978-1-78037-649-3 (ISBN)
Yannis Ritsos (1909–90) is generally considered to be – along with Cavafy, Seferis and Elytis – one of the most significant Greek poets of the last century.
His life was, to say the least, troubled. From an early age, he was dogged by the tuberculosis that killed his mother and brother. His father and sister suffered breakdowns and spent time in institutions.
His poem Epitaphios (1936), a lament for a young man shot dead by the police during a tobacco workers’ strike, was publicly burned by the Metaxas regime and his books banned. During the post-World War Two civil war – because he sided with the left – Ritsos was arrested and sent to prison camps. Then, in 1967, when the Papadopoulos military junta took control of the country, he was again arrested, again his books were banned, again he spent time in prison camps, before being confined to house arrest on the island of Samos.
The violence and tyranny of dictatorship is often fractured by the surreal. In the poems collected here, written by Ritsos while in prison and under house arrest, that fracture in perception is a wound.
A Broken Man in Flower has an introduction by John Kittmer and includes the text of an illuminating and vivid letter sent by Ritsos to his publisher in 1969 while under house arrest on Samos describing his life – and the lives of Greeks – under the repressive rule of the Colonels.
David Harsent’s thirteen collections have won a number of awards, including the Forward Prize, the T.S. Eliot Prize and the Griffin International Prize. He is also a librettist: his collaborations with composers, chiefly with Harrison Birtwistle, have been performed at major venues worldwide.
David Harsent has published thirteen volumes of poetry. Legion won the Forward Prize. Night was triple shortlisted in the UK and won the Griffin International Poetry Prize. Fire Songs won the T.S. Eliot Prize. A new collection, Loss, appeared in January 2020. A Broken Man in Flower: versions of Yannis Ritsos is published by Bloodaxe in 2023. Harsent has collaborated with several composers, though most often with Harrison Birtwistle. Birtwistle/Harsent collaborations have been performed at major venues worldwide, including the Royal Opera House, the Salzburg Festival, the Concertgebouw and Carnegie Hall. He holds a number of fellowships, including Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Fellow of the Hellenic Authors Society. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Roehampton.
INTRODUCTION by John Kittmer
11 I Karlovasi on Samos, 2 April 1969
Yannis Ritsos, under house arrest at Karlovasi on Samos, writes to his friend and publisher, Nana Kallianesi
21 II The Broken Man in Flower
40 Timeline of Ritsos’s life and key work
A BROKEN MAN IN FLOWER
I Partheni Prison Camp, Leros
47 The Treaty
48 Penelope
49 The Plough
50 Unmarked
51 The Argo
52 The Studio
53 A Painting
54 A Break in Routine
55 Naked
56 Growing Old
57 Blocked
58 Newspeak
59 The Wax Museum
60 Endgame
61 Hindsight
62 Knowledge
63 The Blue Jug
64 Cancer
65 On the Edge
66 Blockade
67 Words
68 Content
69 Midnight
70 The Message
71 Things Shift
72 Double
73 Something and Nothing
74 Stones
75 Watermelons
76 No News
77 All of Us
78 Convalescence
79 Shame
80 In Short
81 At Dusk
82 The Corridor
II Homeland: Eighteen Bitter Songs
Partheni Prison Camp / Samos
85 1: Baptism
86 2: Q&A
87 3: In Time
88 4: The People
89 5: Memorial
90 6: Dawn
91 7: ‘Freedom’
92 8: Green
93 9: Theology
94 10: To Greece
95 11: The Song
96 12: Offshore Trees
97 13: Feast Day
98 14: Epitaph
99 15: The Tides
100 16: The New House
101 17: One Thought
102 18: No Tears For Romiosini
III Samos: house arrest
105 Abandoned
106 Poem
107 Ceremony
108 As If Loukas
109 Underwater
110 Fear
111 Substitution
112 Separate Ways
113 The View from Here
114 Just This
115 Squaddies
116 Reversals
117 Kollyva
118 Saturday 11 a.m.
119 Aware
120 Birdcall
121 Why?
122 Connections
123 Wrong
124 Out in the Open
125 The List
126 Followed
127 From Nowhere to Nowhere
128 Circle
129 Plans
130 Old Clothes
131 Memory’s Thread
132 Himself Alone
133 Frost
134 Departures III
135 Suspicion
136 That Other Man
137 Numbers
138 Absentee
139 In Reverse
140 Soldier Dolls
141 Waiting to Die
142 Almost
143 Before She Sleeps
144 Motionless
145 Woodworm
146 Omens
147 White
148 The Tree – The Hanged Man
149 The Other House
150 White Night
151 Life in Phares
152 Midnight
153 Masquerade
154 After Rain
155 Nausea
156 Habit
157 Leaves
158 Quotidian
159 Rain
160 By the Window
161 In Flower
162 Three-storey House with Basement
163 Call
164 Locked Off
165 Changes
166 Lies and Secrets
167 Ever
168 Fakes
169 Pointless
170 The Girl Who Regained Her Sight
171 Interrogation Centre
172 Locked
173 Badge of Honour
174 Midnight Knock
175 This
176 The Green Armchair
177 Sleepless
178 Baptism of Blood
179 The Summons
180 Renewal
181 In Readiness
182 Report
183 Greece
184 Hints
187 Broken
188 Testament
| Erscheinungsdatum | 16.05.2023 |
|---|---|
| Verlagsort | Tyne and Wear |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 1560 x 234 mm |
| Themenwelt | Literatur ► Lyrik / Dramatik ► Lyrik / Gedichte |
| ISBN-10 | 1-78037-649-9 / 1780376499 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1-78037-649-3 / 9781780376493 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
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